


A Not-So-Typical Sunday Night

by kekinkawaii



Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23953942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kekinkawaii/pseuds/kekinkawaii
Summary: They do have to go back and clean that bus at some point.In which Paul and Ellie have some much-needed discussion about love, sexuality, taco sausages, and the fraudulent deception of Taylor Swift songs.
Relationships: Ellie Chu & Paul Munsky
Comments: 38
Kudos: 226





	A Not-So-Typical Sunday Night

He’s already there when she arrives. There’s a bucket of soapy water next to his hiking boots and a sponge in one hand, and he’s scrubbing a row of aimless, curly-q circles that huddle near the corner of the back window before they wander off to somewhere in the middle.

When he hears the creaking of the steps as she enters the run-down, dilapidated bus, he jolts as if shocked before turning around. When he sees her, his jaw works for a moment, as if trying to muster the courage to speak—or to comb out what exactly to say.

“Uh,” is what he finally settles on.

And despite everything, Ellie snorts. It’s cynical in the air, but the upwards tug of her mouth brings a lightness that wasn’t there before. She comes closer, and Paul’s eyes catch on the splash of the orange pail of water she’s carrying in one hand and the raggedy tartan dishcloth in the other.

“Guess we both had the same idea,” Ellie says, and takes her spot next to him. She dips the cloth into the water, wrings it out a little, and carries on where Paul left off—wiping off word clouds and Lord Byron and a Monroe Venn Diagram.

“Yeah,” Paul says, after a bout of thick silence. It’s sticky in the air and hangs like a stormcloud, a dropped china dish in shards, a ping-pong ball that hits the net, flutters for a moment, then stills.

They make it a few minutes and nearly half the bus before Paul bursts.

“I’m so sorry, Ellie,” he stumbles out, words tripping over each other before falling in a heavy heap.

Ellie pauses. She turns to look at Paul. “For what?” she says, not because she doesn’t know, but because she wants to see if Paul finally understands.

“I don’t know!” Paul cries out, and Ellie represses a sigh.

“It’s just so—so _messy,”_ he continues. “At first I liked Aster but I just, it was all _you_ and none of it was me but I took it anyway because I thought, if I just kept going, it would be okay—but it didn’t work, and it’s like I don’t even _know_ her at all. And then I—I don’t know. I was confused. I thought, maybe, you and me—” He cringes, wiping concentric circles on the same spot in the window, over and over, getting smaller and smaller until his hand finally stops and he stares out the window. “I thought love was supposed to be this _thing,_ you know? Like, if I just liked Aster enough she’d like me back. But it’s not. It’s everything you said back there at the church.”

Ellie looks at him with pursed lips. From this angle, she can still see the reddened streak along his face where Astor had hit him, fading but still visible. She thinks that maybe, even if Paul can’t put it into words, he does understand from within.

And then, of course, Paul has to go and ruin the moment.

“Ellie, I think I’m _gay,”_ he says.

Ellie groans out loud and starts furiously scrubbing at the window. “You’re not gay,” she says.

“Wh—how do you know?” Paul says, which just goes to prove how much he isn’t gay.

“Because we devised an elaborate, outlandish, and quite frankly inappropriate plan for you to win over Astor Flores’ heart,” Ellie says. “Because you kissed her. Because you tried to kiss _me.”_

Paul cringes. “Oh, God,” he says. “Ellie, I am _so, so—”_

Ellie shakes her head. “I know you’re sorry,” she says, and huffs. “Anyway, you’re not gay. Bi-curious, I’ll let slide. But definitely not gay.”

Paul blinks. “What’s bi-curious?”

Ellie bites down on her tongue, hard. “Google it when you get home,” she says.

“Okay,” Paul says agreeably. 

There’s another round of silence, punctuated by the drip-drip-drip of murky water and the squeaking of glass.

“You wanna know something funny?” Paul says. They’ve moved to the first few rows, now, where the notes taper off into little doodles and jotted notes, and, on occasion, a scribbled game of hangman. Ellie makes a small noise of acknowledgement.

“The reason I, um.” Paul swallows. “I tried to kiss you because I thought—when Astor and I weren’t working out, I thought, well, it must be meant to be. That it was like one of those teen movies where the truth has been right in front of me the whole time. Like, uh, like that Taylor Swift song! _Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find…”_

Ellie stops washing the windows and takes a moment to silently watch Paul sing, voice too low and too crackly and so off-key it’s hard to figure out if she wants to burst out laughing or run out of the bus.

 _“That what you're looking for has been here the whole time!”_ Paul finishes, with a poor attempt at a hair flip. “You know that song? That music video with the neighbours and the cute-ass signs?”

“I take it back,” Ellie says. “You might be a little gay after all.”

“Really?” Paul says.

“No.” Ellie wrings out the washcloth, watches the ripple of grey water in the bucket. “Paul, do you have any romantic feelings about me?”

Paul pauses. “Not really,” he mutters.

Somewhere deep in her chest, Ellie breathes a huge sigh of relief. “So you just tried to kiss me because you thought, what? That your life was a Taylor Swift music video?”

“I mean when you put it like that it sounds stupid,” Paul complains.

“That’s because it is.” Ellie wipes down her final window and drops the washcloth back into the bucket. She turns to Paul to face him fully. “Love is nothing like the movies, books, whatever. Maybe in some instances, yes. Occasionally, things click into place. But for the rest of us unlucky ones, we need to trudge through life the way it is: messy and disappointing and hopelessly complicated. Love isn’t some perfect, be-all, end-all thing.”

“There are so many different forms of love,” Paul echoes, something finally dawning on his face. “More than I ever thought possible.”

Ellie smiles. “See? You do get it.”

“I wouldn’t ever have, if not for you,” Paul says.

Ellie feels something warm rise, unbridled, inside of her, and it bubbles out into speech. “I’m going to college,” she says. 

Paul’s eyes widen. “Really? That’s amazing! Where?”

“Iowa,” Ellie says.

“That’s far,” Paul says, surprised.

“It is,” Ellie agrees.

“I’m happy for you,” Paul says, after a moment. “You’re too smart to be in Squahamish. You’re gonna go real far, Ellie.”

“Thanks, Paul.”

Paul grins, and then it suddenly sidles into something stiff and awkward on his face. He opens his arms a little. “Can I hug you? Is that weird?”

Ellie frowns. “Why would that be weird?” 

“I dunno,” Paul says.

Ellie stares at him for a moment until it’s obvious she isn’t getting anything more, and then she shakes her head before stepping in and hugging him tight. Paul freezes in surprise before squeezing back, so tightly it knocks the breath out of her.

He ruffles her hair when they part, giving her a warm look, something lopsided and affectionate—and maybe it isn’t a movie, but Ellie still feels that click.

Paul rubs the back of his neck. “I, um,” he says. “Aster blocked me. On Instagram. And Twitter. And—well, everything, basically.”

Ellie scoffs. “Can’t say I’m particularly surprised.”

Paul laughs softly. “Yeah,” he says. “But, um. I just meant that. If you wanted to, y’know, shoot your shot with her. If you ever need me for anything, I know I’m not much, but…” He shrugs. “I can make some kickass taco sausages.”

Ellie watches Paul for a moment, then smiles. “I’m sure Aster would love them.”

Paul looks hopeful. “Yeah?” 

Ellie nods, knowing that, for her, it means she’s accepting his apology—retrieving the ping-pong ball and serving it back over the net. It means that things will be okay.

For Paul, it just means he’ll get to make some kickass taco sausages. He beams, that golden-retriever puppy look that always makes it impossible not to smile back.

"You know, I was thinking,” Paul says, “What if I made sausage other things? Like... like sausage pizza!”

Ellie frowns. “Isn’t that already a thing?”

“Oh,” Paul says, disappointed. “Right.” He scratches his chin. “Sausage hot dogs!”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Oh, right,” Paul says. “Sausage quesadilla?”

Ellie looks contemplative. “Maybe.”

 _“Hell_ yeah,” Paul says enthusiastically. He scrubs off the last mark on the window—a little drawing of two stickmen with hearts dancing around them—and drops his washcloth into his bucket.

“Need a ride home?” he asks. “It’s pretty late.”

Ellie shakes her head. “I biked.”

Paul waves a hand. “We can fit your bike inside the car.” 

“Um, no, you can’t.”

Paul raises his eyebrows in a ridiculous manner. “Watch me,” he declares loftily, and hops off the bus without another word.

Ellie is stunned for a moment before she lets out a yell that turns into resigned laughter. “If you break my bike, I swear to God!” she warns after him.

“Well then you better come help me!”

Ellie laughs, again, and grabs the two water pails left over before stumbling towards the entrance. The bus is completely wiped down, a clean slate, a new turn of the page.

She doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> So I just watched The Half of It on Netflix and I LOVED it. More importantly, I LOVED PAUL MUNSKY. What an endearing, confused mood and a half.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments brighten my day. Let me know what you think <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Not-So-Typical Sunday Night [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972307) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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